by Stock, L. J.
“I'm your father, Cass. Your real father.”
“No…” It wasn't that I was objecting to him or his proclamation as my paternal parent. All I could think about was the years of hearing sounds and never knowing why. Damon’s disappearance, the girl's death, my cut wrists, and the hospital... I'd been left to suffer it all alone. I'd been led to believe I was crazy, when all along these people had known that what I was experiencing was very real. Bile bubbled in my stomach as I pulled my hand from his grip, both my arms folding around my stomach protectively.
“Cass–”
“No. You're just as bad as they are. You left me there in hell, letting me believe I really was crazy.” I couldn't stand the look of unmitigated sadness lingering behind his eyes as I threw accusations at him. I scrambled to escape the chair, knocking it over as I stumbled from the rich material and tugged the dress with me. The crash of wood against the stone floor echoed through the room, but I was oblivious to it. All I could feel was hurt and betrayal clawing their way from inside of me as the unfamiliar setting sent me into a full-blown panic attack.
“Please, Cass–”
The king’s pleading was interrupted by the door flying open, as Damon and another guard stood with their swords drawn while I backed farther away, my hands clawing at my chest as I fought for a breath. From the shadows of the room, another guard I hadn’t noticed stepped to into the light to stop the other men, but the king was already waving them back.
“Damon, stay. Aiolos, please, there's no trouble here. I fear you'll just make this worse if you stay.”
The other guard bowed low and backed from the room, sheathing his sword as he did. The guard who had already been in the room blended back in with the wall as furtively as he’d appeared. With my back against the wall, my eyes moved between the two men left behind. I was lost somewhere between panic and anger as I watched them communicate silently. My world was falling apart and they stood there looking like statues, waiting for it to happen. It was at this point I embraced my anger and pulled it around me like a protective shield, extinguishing the last inkling of panic. All I felt now was the betrayal. Damon, not an hour earlier, had pulled me aside and spoken to me about truths and here he was, riding the back of the biggest lie he'd been a part of to date.
“Cass…” Damon said cautiously, his body moving in my direction slowly. I shook my head, my hands outstretched to stop his advance.
“Just stop there. Please,” I begged, looking between the two of them. I was overwhelmed.
“Cassandra, I know you're upset, but you have to understand that I had no choices here. None whatsoever. Your mother told me about you, and then begged me to let you have a normal life. I fought with everything I could to have the right to see you, to be your father, but she promised to disappear if I tried to see you again. I couldn't risk her taking off. I couldn’t risk losing you. I needed to be able to watch over you. You're not the only one who was hurt through this, sweetheart. It pained me not being able to hold you, or to be the father I so desperately hoped you had. I understand if you have to leave now. You need to think things through and talk to your mother. I appreciate that, but please, all I ask is that you don't leave here angry.”
I covered my face with my hands, trying to push back the sudden onslaught of tears. If what he was saying was the truth then my mom was the one who had kept everything good in my life away from me. I couldn’t condemn anyone else for their actions until I’d spoken to her, and I couldn't march out of here leaving this kind of turmoil in my wake. The king still had so many answers and if I left angry, if I allowed the last words spoken to him to be borne of indignation, I would be too embarrassed to come back.
I had to come back and talk to him, and I’d be the sane, rational person I knew I could be. I just had to leave this room now before I became so overwhelmed I fell apart, and I had to go in a sensible manner. I had to remember myself and whose presence I was in.
“I’m sorry. I need time to think, and I need to talk to my mom.”
The king inclined his head and I didn’t miss the pain behind his eyes. It seemed I really wasn’t the only one that was hurt by all of this. Could he really be that pained about a daughter he hadn’t known? Had he really watched from afar as he’d alluded? The endless questions never seemed to cease, and as always, the answers only ever raised more questions.
“I understand, but please, take someone with you. You need a guard.”
“No, I need to do this alone,” I begged, trying to inject some semblance of politeness into my voice. “Please, it's the only thing I'm asking you for right now.”
He nodded and stepped back from between the skewed chairs and out of my way, his hands dropping to his sides in defeat. It seemed so unfair that I wasn’t the only collateral damage in my mother’s lies. There was a chance she could have a perfectly reasonable explanation for this, but I highly doubted it.
“Please, come back to see me soon. I know this is a shock, but I really would like the opportunity to get to know you better.”
I bobbed my head, unable to offer him anything more substantial when I wasn't even sure what I was feeling right now. The only thing I was certain of was my need for solitude. I needed to be alone to think things through before I went to my mother. I was going to confront her with the truth. I just needed to know that she would be alone when I did it.
“Cass, please, let me come with you,” Damon asked, stepping in my path and blocking my exit.
I shook my head again, my face wearing the feelings of betrayal clearly as I stepped around him. There was nothing he could say that would make this deception any easier to swallow. I needed time and space, and I hoped the look I was giving him translated enough that he would respect that.
I was out of the door before either of them could say another word. My fingers tangled in the skirts of my dress, raising them as I turned left and then right, looking for the best way out and coming up blank.
“Water?” I asked one of the guards standing outside the room. He barely broke his rigid stance as he eyed me.
“To the left, take the first corridor on the right and follow it to the end. The kitchen is through that door.”
I nodded my thanks and took off at a sprint, my mind on the farmhouse as I took a sharp right and kicked off the ridiculous heels I’d been wearing. I had to deal with all of this, I knew I did, but I needed to breathe first – something I was still struggling to do.
I burst through the doors of the kitchen, ignoring the people working in the space, my eyes searching for any form of water and conveniently finding it under a barrel of green apples. Without hesitation, I dropped my hands into the freezing liquid, my body translocating without thought. I landed unceremoniously on my ass in a half full bathtub in my room, the tears finally liberating themselves from my tenuous hold.
I couldn’t move. I didn’t want to.
Later, when I did, I was forced to think about how my life had been one big lie from start to the present. I wasn’t even sure I knew who I was anymore.
Web of Lies
For days I hid in my room. After Alexa had found me in the bathroom and talked me down, I’d spoken to no one and refused to see Damon, even when he translocated to my dimension and hammered on my door demanding I let him in. I needed to speak to my mother before I dared speak to him and let him convince me to talk to the king again, which he would. That's just what Damon did; he played devil’s advocate when it came to the King of Mortisali – a pattern I’d only just begun to let myself see.
The feeling of betrayal was burning in my gut as I wallowed in my own self-pity. Damon had obviously known the truth about my lineage. In fact, they'd all known, and not one of them had said a word about it to me. They'd all just let me wander off to the palace like a lamb heading to slaughter. I partly understood that the king wanted to be the one to break the news of his paternity, but I felt like they could have, at the very least, warned me about just how consequential this secret was.
/> I couldn’t deny there was a certain amount of relief involved in the revelation, however. Robert Collier, the man who seemed to have made a hobby out of hating me, was not my biological father. The pieces from my past had slowly started to fall together. The King’s revelation had explained so much. Like why I didn't look a thing like the man who had been posing as my father for the last twenty-four years. Why he’d loved treating me with such distaste, and more to the point, why my mother had obviously let him.
Guilt was a powerful emotion, and from the sounds of it, my mother had cheated on Robert with the king, my… father. There was a small part of me that now understood why Robert had been so upset, but at the time, I’d been an innocent child. I hadn't known the truth about where I'd come from, or that he was anything but my father, so why had I been the one to bear that weight? My mother's indiscretion had a consequence, and that was me, but I hadn't asked to be dumped into the middle of that particular shit storm.
I'd never had a great deal of self-esteem, and what little I did have was in spite of the way I'd been treated by the man I'd believed to be my father. My brother had been a huge factor in that small, carefree side of me, and Robert had always resented the bond I had with my brother, because he did love Steven. Steven just hated the way Robert treated me so he’d had no respect for him, which made Robert hate me all the more and it ended up in a vicious circle, all of it falling on my welcome mat.
I knew there was only one way to really clear up all of the uncertainty. There was only one person who would answer my questions, and that was my mother. I needed to hear her version of events before I made a decision to do anything else.
Unfortunately, there were a few reasons I was resisting and procrastinating when it came to making that trip. The trepidation of going back to the house that I’d inhabited as a child sat heavily on me. It would be going back to the one place in the world that held my worst memories. The very place where the noise of war would still reign supreme, and I would be forced to execute every lesson I'd learned to block the white noise all out. Then there was Robert. He would either ship me back to the hospital, regardless of what that would mean for my fate, or he would throw me out of his house on my ass. The rejection was what I actually felt prepared for. It wouldn't be the first time he would have thrown me out, but it would be the last.
The newest round of beating at the door pulled me from my ruminations, making me jump, and I couldn't help the sigh of frustration as Damon's pleading voice came through the thick wood.
“You have to talk to me eventually, Cass. Please, just open the door and let me in.”
This was day four of my standoff. Alexa and Acantha had knocked on my door only once a day to talk. The rest of the visits had been deliveries of meals that I'd barely touched. It was hard to find an appetite when your world was in turmoil.
“Go away, Damon. For the last time, I don't want to talk to you right now.”
“Why are you punishing me for this?”
I stayed silent, closing my eyes as I drew in deep breaths. He knew exactly why I was pissed off at him. Just like the rest of them, he knew where my hurt came from. It wasn't like I was going to be mad forever, but the constant badgering to talk it out was wearing thin. If they'd just leave me alone then I could think for long enough to figure out how I felt about it all.
I hated that Damon was playing innocent, like there was no reason for him to be shut out. He knew exactly what he was guilty of. He knew the promise he'd made to me only seconds before I entered the king’s quarters; that alone I could forgive, but I felt like he’d abandoned me when I’d needed him the most. I just needed time to think it through.
I opened my eyes and climbed off the bed, stumbling over my own feet. Being stuck in my room meant I had to be inventive. I missed running, but the sit-ups and push-ups were keeping my strength up, even if my legs and arms ached like hell for it.
“I'm sorry, Damon. I didn't realize the world revolved around you. For the record, this isn't about you. In fact, it has nothing to do with you. I don't want to see anyone.”
“I'm a good listener,” he said quietly, his voice barely identifiable through the door. My fingertips came to rest on the wood. I appreciated his concern, but I needed him to respect my wishes and walk away for a while.
“So am I!” Alexa shouted suddenly, making me jump again as I leaned my forehead against the wood frame. This wasn't going to end well. Those two were protective of me and antagonistic to one another. They were constantly at each other’s throats. Second-guessing and making judgmental comments was just the beginning of this tiresome standoff. Their quest to help me would only end up in my need to run farther away.
“Alexa, please. This doesn't concern you.” Damon groaned, the thud against the door telling me he'd dropped his forehead against it.
“Oh, really? Is that so?”
“Yes, it really is.”
I couldn’t stick around and listen the rest of their bickering. The back and forth banter could last for hours unless someone stepped between them, and that sure as hell wasn't going to be me today.
There was only one person that I really needed and wanted to talk to, and that was my mother. She hadn't had a say in this mess yet, and it was about time she was given the chance to defend herself. My biological father hadn't had the opportunity to give me many details, either, but I needed to process the shock of my paternity before I climbed back on that horse and visited him again.
While Alexa and Damon continued to bicker, I slipped into my bathroom, running a shallow bath as quietly as I could. I needed answers, and even though I knew I shouldn't go alone, I also knew that I wouldn't have peace until I got what I so desperately needed. Turning off the faucets, I tied the laces of my running shoes together and rolled up the legs of my jeans before I stepped into the water and focused all of my attention on my mom. I wasn't sure where I would end up, but it was a risk I was willing to take at this point.
I felt the familiar tingling in my toes and closed my eyes, all of my efforts trained on my mom as I pushed forward. When I felt the temperate water of my bathtub fade to a bitter cold sludge beneath my feet, my eyes flickered open and I shivered as a koi swam over my feet.
I was in Mrs. Kawarski's fishpond.
Scrambling from the cold water, I wiped my feet in the grass and snuck to the side of the house before I was spotted. Leaning against the fence, I pulled on my socks and shoes. I was currently two houses down from my mom’s, and it was still the middle of the day, which meant Robert would be at work, leaving me plenty of time to talk to her and get out before he showed up.
With my shoes on, I slipped out of the backyard and across the grassy embankment to the street. The liberation of running was too much of a temptation to miss out on as I raced down the sidewalk, shrinking into my sweater, and keeping Mom’s house in my line of sight.
The structure hadn't changed since the last time I'd been there. The dark wood siding and white trim would always be familiar to me. There weren't many happy memories here – especially not for me – but I had spent a large portion of my life within the confines of its walls, and there was something to be said for a place that held so many of your years inside of it. Taking the steps up to the porch two at a time, I looked around at the flowers that had multiplied and the fresh coat of paint on the pillars holding up the porch roof. Someone had added a swing that made it seem more homely than it ever had been to me.
From the outside, it actually looked like a home full of warmth, love and care, but it was only a façade. It was a lie. At least it had been for me. The only sense of family this house had ever held during my youth was in the form of my brother, something that had been stolen the moment he’d left for college.
Suddenly unsure about what I was about to do, I made an effort to push myself to knock on the door and take a step back. If I hadn't done it in that moment, I knew I wouldn't have done it at all. My palms were already damp, and my heart was slowly creeping up into my throat
as the buzz started ringing quietly in my ears.
I almost backed away when I heard someone walking over the hardwood floors toward the door, the need to know the truth suddenly not as important as it had been in the face of seeing my mom again. I hadn't seen her in years. Now, all of a sudden, I was on her doorstep and I was terrified she would turn me away, even without the influence of her asshole husband.
“Cass?” she asked, peering through the small slither of glass that sat on the side of the door. Even after all the years of absence, her voice was so familiar to me.
“Hey, Mom.”
Stepping back as the screen door swung open, I watched her appraise me. I wasn’t entirely sure how I’d expected her to react to my appearance, but I did know I wasn't expecting what happened next. Her arms folded around me only seconds before she pulled me against her chest, her words mumbled and hurried as her hands ran down my hair and my back. I couldn't make out a thing she was saying. I was too stunned by the embrace to even listen more intently.
“Come in, come in,” she said, finally stepping out of the way, her eyes moving up and down the street as though she was waiting for someone to jump out and reprimand her for having visitors.
Slipping past her, I made my way inside. It hadn't changed much in the time I'd been away. There were still pictures of Steven littering every surface – now joined by Liana and Oliver – while I was very obviously, missing. Not one picture of me existed within the walls of this house. When it came to this family, I might as well have not existed.
“Not that I'm not happy to see you, sweetheart, but–”
“What am I doing here?” I finished for her, falling into the leather couch.
“Well, yes. You know what your father's like.”
I didn't mean to snort at the comment, I really didn't, but the moment the sound fell from me, I saw her eyes widen. She knew I'd learned the truth. She suddenly understood why I was there, and I could see the fear in her eyes.
